Sermon: On living a new story (October 30, 2022)

Pentecost 21C (Reformation)
October 30, 2022
Luke 19:1-10

INTRODUCTION

One quirk about the lectionary, the assigned texts for each week, is that on Reformation Day, the last Sunday in October, the texts are always the same every year. Now, they are good texts, don’t get me wrong – scriptures about the freedom we have in Christ, and the promise of forgiveness, and all those wonderful theological themes that Martin Luther proclaimed and wrote about during the Reformation. But after 10 years of the same texts, I admit: sometimes I want something different to preach for Reformation Day! So, another option is to use whatever texts would have been assigned today, had Reformation not usurped them. And this year, that’s what I did, because I couldn’t resist the wonderful story of Zacchaeus, that wee little man who climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus. (I did maintain just the Romans reading from the Reformation Day set, because I also couldn’t resist that!)

Now, we will still get from these texts the promise of God’s mercy and forgiveness, especially from Isaiah and the Psalm. And Romans will certainly hit home the point that we are not saved by following the law, but rather, by grace through faith. 

As for the Zacchaeus story, you will certainly hear grace in it, and freedom, but it might not be quite as obvious. This encounter comes at the end of Jesus’ travel narrative, right before his entry into Jerusalem. Zacchaeus is not the crowd’s favorite person, and yet we will see that people are not always as they seem – and Jesus will show the crowd that Zacchaeus is just as worthy of God’s grace as anyone. Let’s listen!

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who is and who was and who is to come. Amen.

As I mentioned last Sunday, this past week my husband Michael deployed to NY City with the NY Guard for two months. He’ll be dealing with the influx of refugees and asylum seekers who are being sent to our state – a mission we both believe in! He left on Tuesday, so we spent the day Monday getting him ready to go. One errand was an oil change. As we sat in the waiting room of a Jiffy Lube, Michael mentioned to someone what he was about to do, and thus began a political conversation with a couple guys, who were both on the opposite end of the political spectrum from Michael! Now, Michael is not only very well-informed on political matters; he is also very good at finding common ground and pointing it out – “we agree on that!” he’ll say. He is also quick to say, “If you can show me a primary source to support that belief, I will gladly reconsider my point of view. In fact, I’ll work with you to set things right.” When he said that, one of the gentlemen said, arms crossed over his chest, “I’m not changing my view.” To which Michael responded, “That attitude is a problem.” 

I know this is no secret to any of us – that this unwillingness to budge, even in light of contradictory information – is indeed a problem, one that is wreaking havoc on our democracy and society. But it is also nothing new. We are by nature resistant to change, hesitant to believe something we don’t yet trust, and far more likely to stand our ground even on a belief we know is broken or problematic, simply because it feels safer than the alternative, and keeps us feeling in control. We do this with institutions, with people, and with concepts. Really, it is remarkable that something like the Reformation could happen at all – Martin Luther’s theological views were a threat to Church as it had always been done, and, life-giving as those views were and are, it is no surprise at all that the powers that be were resistant to them. Letting go of a past understanding feels an awful lot like admitting we are wrong (hard for the best of us!). It feels like giving up power (another doozie), and completely changing a way of living and seeing the world (yikes!). None of these are in our human nature: to stand firm in what we believe to be true, even when faced with evidence to the contrary.

I see this playing out in our Gospel reading today as well, in the story of Zacchaeus. The traditional reading of this story says that Zacchaeus was a scoundrel, a big ol’ sinner. After all, tax collectors are often grouped with “notorious sinners” in the Gospels, since they were known to defraud people and take more money than was due, and here Zacchaeus is, the chief tax collector – the chief sinner of them all! Yet he encounters Jesus, repents of his sins, and vows to live differently, and Jesus declares that salvation has come to this house this very day! He came, he says, to seek out the lost, by which we assume he means, people like Zacchaeus.

It’s a satisfying reading all right. But I’m not so sure it is accurate. First of all, Zacchaeus never confesses sin, nor does he ask for mercy. Even his vow to change isn’t quite right. For some reason, the translators of the NRSV put his line in verse 8 in the future tense – “I will give half my possessions to the poor and I will pay back four times anyone I have defrauded” – but in the Greek, these statements are in the present tense. As in, this is already his practice. He’s already doing those things. That grammatical change – changes everything!

So instead, here is what I see in Zacchaeus: I see a man who is so desperate to see Jesus that he is willing to throw his dignity to the wind. He runs ahead of the crowd and climbs a tree, hoping to catch a glimpse. When Jesus sees him, and invites himself over to Zacchaeus’s house, Zacchaeus joyfully receives him. And he describes to Jesus his extraordinary generosity – not pompously like last week’s Pharisee, but as a counter to what the crowd is saying about him. This is all very faithful, even, commendable living!

But trouble comes for Zacchaeus when the crowd begins to grumble. “This guy?” they say. “You wanna eat with this guy? He’s a sinner! He’s chief tax collector! Jesus, you don’t want to be seen with the likes of him.” They have judged Zacchaeus – whose name, incidentally, means “pure” or “innocent.” They’ve already made up their minds about him, based on what external knowledge they have of him. In their defense, perhaps Zacchaeus used to be the way they assume, but he has already begun to turn his life around. Or maybe he's hoping to change the corrupt system of tax collection from the inside. Or maybe he wants to get out of the whole operation, but he just can’t find other work. 

Point is, by the time he throws his dignity out the window and climbs a tree in a desperate attempt to see Jesus, Zacchaeus may already be well on the path toward living a redeemed life that is for others. But the crowd has already formed their opinion about him, and they can’t, or don’t want, to budge. For them, tax collectors are all bad, and Zacchaeus is no exception. I can just see that gentleman from the Jiffy Lube among the crowd, arms crossed over his chest, saying, “I won’t change my views.”

And yet, Zacchaeus is trying to write and to live a different story for himself – a story in which God’s mercy and grace have compelled him toward a life of generosity and hospitality, a story in which he knows of God’s power and wants to be close to Jesus, a story in which the thought of being close to Jesus fills him with joy! His is a beautiful story, an inspiration, a delight! But the crowd is so stuck in their ways and assumptions, that they won’t budge.

This is the story of faith – a stubborn people want to stay in their ways, continue in their assumptions and their way of life that does not bring life, and God continually comes to them, striving to bring about redemption and a change of heart, to bring God’s people into newness of life. It was that way for the people of Israel. It was that way in the Middle Ages, when Luther first hammered those 95 Theses on the church door. It is that way now. 

And yet, Jesus tells Zacchaeus and the crowd, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham,” – a child of God. “For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost” – to seek out those who will not budge, who are determined to stay put in their views, who have not opened their hearts to the ways that God is always entering into our story and changing us, inspiring us, and redeeming us. Jesus’ statement is as true for us now as it was for the crowd in Jericho. Today, and every day, salvation comes to us, because that is the mission of God. Today, salvation has come to this house, to your house and to mine, to all of us in the places we are, the stories we are living. Today salvation has come to the Church, calling us into a new way, a new life, a new story – one which sees people not for who we think or assume they are, but for the way that God sees them, for the person God is drawing them into being. 

Reformation Day: it’s a day when we celebrate that our foundation is Christ, and as a Church built upon that foundation, we are necessarily always anticipating a new thing, a new way, a new life. We are always being saved from our dead-end ways. May God continue to come into our stories to redeem them, and may we always be open for it!

Let us pray… Reforming God, we are often stuck in our ways, closed to the possibility of new life that you relentlessly offer. Come into our story, and open our hearts to see the ways you are redeeming your people, today and every day. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Full service can be viewed HERE.

Sermon: Made good by God's goodness (Oct 23, 2022)

Pentecost 20C
October 23, 2022
Luke 18:9-14

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Me with Rozella at ministerium

I had the pleasure this past week of attending the Upstate New York Synod Ministerium. This is an event for ELCA clergy across the state, meant to be a time of learning, respite, and fellowship. We haven’t met in person since 2019, so it was wonderful to be together again! The real gift, though, was the speaker, Rozella H. White, who is a life coach, author of the book, Love Big: The Power of Revolutionary Relationships to Heal the World, and just a beautiful human being inside and out. The focus of our time together was on healing – for a group of spiritual leaders who have been carrying a lot of people’s grief for the past three years, and maybe haven’t given themselves a chance for rest and self-love. There were more than a few tears shed over those two days, as healing began to happen, you can be sure! 

One thing we talked about was how many of us – clergy and laity alike – are very good at the commandment to “love your neighbor,” but maybe not so good at the part that says, “as yourself.” As Rozella said, we like to say, “Love your neighbor! (as yourself).” And so we do and do and do for everyone else – some of us in our paid work, some in our volunteer work, some in the work of raising kids or caring for ailing spouses or parents, and keeping a home – but we neglect treating ourselves with the same love we afford to other people. And this ethic aligns perfectly with how our society understands worth: the message we receive is that our worth is dependent upon our productivity. How many benchmarks did you meet? How many times and ways do you volunteer? What title have you achieved? Even, how successful are your children? There is less value attached to, for example, how centered are you? How diligent are you at keeping healthy boundaries? How deep and meaningful are your relationships? In fact, these latter skills are sometimes seen as barriers to the real goal of productivity! 

I’ll tell ya, the conversation about this with a bunch of pastors and this presenter was so rich, and I’m still thinking about it. No surprise, then, that it was spinning in my head as I came to this week’s Gospel reading. I love this parable. I think it is so relatable, in so many ways. This time when I read it, I looked with special interest at the pharisee. I began to wonder, what is behind his bluster? Why does he insist, even in prayer, on being so self-congratulatory? One might think he is full of himself, that indeed he loves himself too much, but I don’t think so. Because in my experience with people, I often find it the case that when people act this way, it is because they are compensating for some insecurity they harbor. Maybe on the inside they feel much more like the tax collector, as a sinner in need of mercy – but they are perhaps unwilling or even unable to identify or admit it to anyone else or even to themselves. And so they – or should I say, we – put forth to the world a persona that is confident and self-assured, because if we can convince others that we are good and productive and worthy, then maybe, just maybe, we will believe it about ourselves. Believe that we are good, that we are loveable.

Now, this isn’t true for everyone. Many people struggle with self-esteem, to be sure, but not everyone. And those who do struggle with self-image may deal with it differently than this. But whether or not you can relate personally, we all know people like this, right, and the question is still worth exploring: what if the real issue with the pharisee is not that he loves himself too much and needs a dose of humility, but rather, that he has tied up his worthiness and goodness and belovedness in what he does, in what he can produce…. And that deep down, he does not believe himself to be worthy or good or loveable? 

Seeing him this way allows me to see him not with disdain and annoyance, but with compassion. Rather than roll my eyes at his arrogance, I find myself wanting to give him a hug and say, “Oh my friend. Please know that you are worth more than what you produce. Your identity and worth are not your mistakes, nor your successes.” I want to say this to him because I, too, have that inner critic, that voice in my head that is always telling me, “Johanna, that could have been better,” or, “Johanna, you aren’t doing enough – you should be doing more.” I, too, am tempted to judge my own worth on what I’m doing and how successfully I’m doing it. It can be tempting to get swallowed up in that belief! And so, I see this pharisee, so eager to bolster his own self-image, to make himself look good so that he’ll feel better about himself, and I want to assure him, “God loves you, my friend, just as you are! While you are a sinner, just like all of us, that’s okay – God’s grace is bigger than your sins.” 

The other guy, of course, the tax collector, doesn’t hide his wrongdoing. He comes to God with an open heart, exactly as he is, and is honest. He does not try to be someone he is not, nor hide his wrongdoing from God. And, Jesus tells us that this man went home justified. He was able to rest in God’s grace for him. That level of honesty, both with self and with God, is dreadfully painful at times. But the result is to walk away justified and at peace. It is, in the end, worth it.

So what about us? I feel inclined to tell this fictional pharisee that his worth is not tied to his mistakes, but do I allow myself that same grace? We can love our neighbor in this way, but can we love ourselves? 

In the end, these two are not so different – and we can relate to both of them at different moments. It is true for both of these sinners, and it is true for us, that our goodness and belovedness does not depend on those “things done and things left undone” that we began our service with confessing, nor is it based on our own merit and accomplishment. We are sinners, to be sure – I’ve yet to meet a single human being who isn’t – but we were also created good, and in the image of a good God. Our worth and self-image are not dependent on us, on what we accomplish, but rather on God, and what God has accomplished. We are good, because God made us good. And, the other guy, whoever it is we may feel tempted to judge, is also good, because God made them good. That is a centering truth to which we must return. 

Centering – that is another thing I have been thinking about since the clergy retreat I attended this week. After we talked about healing, and the need for rest, Rozella told us she doesn’t like seeking “balance” as a goal for our lives. Sometimes, she said, balance is impossible – like if you live with very needy dependents, whether young or old. Instead, she prefers to seek being centered. When we have a strong sense of our center, we may lean one way or another, but we will find our way home, back to center. Like those Weeble toys from the 70s – remember? “Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.” They return to center.

If we can rest solidly in that truth, that our goodness is wholly dependent on God’s goodness – then we will have no need to judge or compare ourselves to others, like the pharisee. We can shut down that inner critic who tells us we are not doing enough, that we are not enough, that we are not loveable. We will be confident in who and how God made us to be: beloved children of God, made in God’s good image.

At several points during the retreat, Rozella led us through this grounding exercise, as a way of helping us find our center, and to see ourselves as God’s beloved child who is worthy of love and compassion, not just from others, but from ourselves. The exercise took us through repentance, forgiveness, thanksgiving, and finally, love. I’d like to do it with you now, and then I will close us with prayer. Center yourself in your seat (no slouching!). Place one hand on your heart, and the other on your gut. Take some deep breaths, and close your eyes if you’ve comfortable. I’m going to say some phrases that I ask you to repeat back to me, aloud. This is an exercise of loving our neighbor as ourselves: so you are not speaking to me, you are speaking these phrases to yourself. Okay? Start breathing…

I’m sorry…

Please forgive me…

Thank you…

I love you…

Gracious and loving God, you have made us good, but sometimes we find that hard to believe. You love us freely, but we work too hard, thinking your love must be earned. Call us back to center, back to the unshakable knowledge that you are good and gracious beyond measure, and you love us dearly. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.  

Full service can be viewed HERE.

Sermon: Wrestling with God (Oct. 16, 2022)

Pentecost 19C
October 16, 2022
Genesis 32:22-31

INTRODUCTION

Luke will tell us at the beginning of our Gospel reading today that the parable Jesus tells is about “the need to pray always and not to lose heart.” I agree with this to some extent, but, well, that particular parable is about so much more than prayer. It’s about demanding justice, and about faithfulness. And yes, these are intricately tied to prayer. But I don’t want us to get stuck in thinking of prayer only as kneeling beside your bed, eyes closed and hands folded. Sometimes, prayer is more about listening than talking. And sometimes, prayer looks like a wrestling match with God!

Which is what our first reading will show us, in the wonderful story of Jacob wrestling with… well, I’ll let you decide who he is wrestling with! I’m going to get more into the full context of that story in my sermon, but for now, here’s what you should know: since Jacob was a baby, he has been a trickster, one who has been especially hard on his twin brother, Esau. In fact, his brother was so mad that Jacob stole his birthright and blessing out from under him, that he threatened to kill Jacob. So Jacob had to run off to family in a different town, where he acquired two wives, two handmaids, 12 children, and a bunch of livestock. But now Jacob has angered that family, too, and is heading back to his family of origin, hoping that Esau will receive and forgive him. Terrified and alone, in today’s story Jacob will encounter some unidentified being, and, as Hebrew Bible scholar Rachel Wrenn comments, the wrestling match is “perhaps the best description of the life of faith in the entire Bible.”

As you listen, recall a time when you struggled to understand the ways of God, when you really had to work at “taking heart” and finding a blessing in what you were going through, and consider where you saw God in that. Let’s listen.

[READ]

In Paul Granlund's portrayal of Jacob wrestling,
at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN,
the identity of Jacob's assailant is unclear. On close inspection,
it seems he is indeed wrestling himself!

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

There is no one in the Bible who is at once so beloved and such a scoundrel as Jacob. Jacob, whose name means, “Supplanter. Trickster.” He has spent his life, from the moment he came out of the womb, trying to cheat other people in order to get what he wanted. And yet, as today’s reading from Genesis hints at, God chooses him to be the namesake of what will become the whole nation of Israel. 

Before we dig into his story, let me set the scene for you. Jacob, son of Isaac and grandson of Father Abraham has led a life of deception and trickery, beginning with his twin brother, Esau. Now, at this point in the story, Jacob is traveling home with all his family and possessions, when he finds out his livid older brother is after him with an army of 400 men. Jacob is, understandably, afraid that he is finally going to get his comeuppance for a lifetime of cheating people. He sends his wives and children across the river, and then sits on the beach of the Jabbok river, alone, and awaiting what comes next. 

As many times as I have read this story, I am always struck by that line, “Jacob was left alone.” When I read it, I am filled with a sense of loneliness myself – who of us has not felt this way at some point? Alone and afraid. Alone and knowing that danger lurks. Alone and regretful. I can ruminate with the best of them – so when I am alone, I usually spend that time ruminating over all the problems in my life, replaying events that didn’t go as I wish they had, having imaginary conversations with people I’ll never actually have, considering all the ways I wish things had gone differently. Those alone times are never really alone, are they? We are alone with our thoughts, with our fears, with our regrets. And none of these make for very good company. When I imagine Jacob sitting there, alone, I wonder if he, too, felt and heard the noise of his fears and his regrets for being such a scoundrel throughout his life.

It isn’t long, though, that he is alone in that darkness of night. Suddenly he is very much not alone – a being comes and begins to wrestle with him. The text says it was “a man.” The prophet Hosea later comments on the story, calling it an angel. At the end, it becomes apparent that this is some kind of divine being, even God Himself. In other words, Jacob wrestled that night with God. 

I just love this image of wrestling with God, because it so beautifully puts words to my own experience of faith. I have never walked away from my faith entirely, but there have been plenty of times for me, and perhaps also for you, when I certainly felt like I was in a wrestling match with God. The match is usually punctuated by prayers such as, “Why this, God? Why now?” and, “Seriously, God??” and, “If you’re going to let stuff like this happen, I’m not sure I want to be in this relationship anymore.” Sometimes, in our more charitable matches, my prayer has been, “I know, God, that you always use things for good – would you please show me the point of this, then, and quickly? What am I supposed to learn here?” Indeed, I have, like Jacob, felt like I’m wrestling with God for a blessing: “I’ve put up with enough already, God! You had better make this worth it in the end!” 

I think a lot of times we think that wrestling with God isn’t okay for a person of faith, that having doubts or struggles somehow means we are no longer faithful. I know of a pastor who had a heart attack, and he later told his congregation that as he rode in that ambulance to the hospital, he wasn’t scared at all, because of his faith. Maybe some would find that inspiring, but I think, “Boy, then how could he possibly understand my struggles?” because I have had plenty of wrestling matches with God, plenty of times when I have struggled and feared and questioned God.

I prefer the story of Mother Theresa. Some years ago, some journals of this now saint were found and published in a book called, Mother Theresa: Come Be My Light. The book created quite a stir, because some of her journal entries expressed not the pure, unchanging faith we had all imagined of this servant of God, but rather, of the many doubts and struggles she faced from day to day. Though many were upset by this, I find it to be rather a comfort. To know that someone of such immense and illustrative faith also struggled and doubted, just like me, gives me hope for my own faith, and the various wrestling matches it faces. Indeed, we can see in Mother Theresa’s writings that it was her struggles that strengthened her faith, and made her able to continue the difficult work she was doing in Calcutta.

You see, strength of faith comes when that faith faces challenges, when it goes through struggles, when we have to question, wrestle, even doubt or maybe even rebel for a bit, but not give up. Faith matures and strengthens as it goes through times of struggle, just as our muscles strengthen when we stress them, as we do in a workout. Perhaps, Jacob needed to have that wrestling match with God that night in order to strengthen and prepare him for becoming the namesake of the great nation of Israel. 

The wrestling match in this story possesses significant fodder for conversation about faith… but let’s not forget to get to the grace that comes with their exchange at the end. Throughout the match, Jacob seems to be holding his own, until finally this divine being touches his hip socket, wrenching it out of joint. This is the last straw for Jacob, and he demands a blessing. After all this, he says, “I will not let you go until you bless me!” Gotta give it to him: dude is gutsy! After an exchange and a name change – an incredibly rich part of this story that warrants an entirely other sermon for some other day! – Jacob does walk away from this encounter with God having received a blessing. That, in itself, is remarkable, and gracious – that after that long, dark, lonely night of wrestling with God, Jacob does walk away changed. His name is something new, something that reflects a God who is on his side; his identity has changed; his faith has strengthened. He has surely been blessed for this next, difficult part of his journey as God’s servant.

But a blessing isn’t all that he leaves with. Almost as an afterthought, the story ends with this line: “The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.” Jacob has indeed been changed – personally, spiritually, and physically. He will never take another step in his life of faith without remembering that on that dark, lonely, fearful night, he was touched by God, that he was blessed by God, that he received God’s grace. And he has the limp to prove it.

That’s how it is when we wrestle with God. So often we face a challenge, a struggle, and desperately long for things to go back to the way they were before – before the fight, before the diagnosis, before the pandemic, before the loss. Indeed, we hold onto the hope that things will go back to the way they once were, back when we were happy, or at least happier, with life. But as the adage goes, “God loves us too much to let us stay the same,” and any meaningful encounter with God will always result in a change. We will walk differently, but we will walk differently because we have been touched by God, touched by blessing, touched by grace. Such a change will take some getting used to – I’m certain Jacob’s life was never the same after that encounter. But in the end, faith is a matter of trust – of trusting that God can take even a man’s struggle on the cross and turn it into new life for us, of trusting that God will lead us wherever it is time for us to go, of trusting that as we walk into the new day, God walks with us, and God’s face shines upon us.

Let us pray… Faithful God, we sometimes find ourselves drawn into a wrestling match with you as we try to understand what you are doing in our lives. Give us faith to trust you even as we wrestle, and to believe that while we will inevitably walk away different than we were before, that this, too, is a part of your magnificent plan for us. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Full service HERE.

Sermon: Find the good and praise it (Oct 9. 2022)

Pentecost 18C
October 9, 2022
Luke 17:11-19

INTRODUCTION

Today we have pretty strong themes of healing, mercy, and thanksgiving. We’ll hear two stories about God healing the leprosy of a foreigner: first the wonderful story of Naaman, the Aramean warrior (that is, an enemy of Israel) who gets a lesson in humility when first, he listens to the advice of a slave girl, and then listens to the advice of a Jewish prophet to wash in the dirty Jordan river. Sure enough, his willingness to listen (however initially hesitant) brings about his healing, and his declaration of God’s power. 

This story sets up well the Gospel reading. Again, we’ll hear a story of God healing leprosy for a bunch of “others” – in this case, Samaritans, the contemporary adversary of the Jews. A large rift existed between Jews and Samaritans, but the main issue is regarding where one should worship. How remarkable, then, that the one Samaritan leper’s response will be one of worship – he worships Jesus, and Jesus will commend him for it. It would be unexpected for a Jewish audience! In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is always flipping the narrative and blurring the lines of who is in and who is out. 

As you listen, just… be grateful. Remember the ways God has been good to you, and listen with a heart full of gratitude. Let’s listen.

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Do you have a motto for your life? Like, something you tell yourself to guide and ground your days? Maybe it’s on a post-it on your mirror, or in your car, or just in your heart. Do you have a motto?

I listened to a podcast this week that opened with this question. The motto the host offered, which was made popular by writer Alex Haley, was this: “Find the good – and praise it.” Find the good and praise it. “Find” is easy enough to understand. Shouldn’t we always be seeking out good in the world? It can be so easy to slip into noticing only the bad things, which causes us then to slip further and further into discouragement. Instead, find the good things. 

But I’m especially interested in the “praise” part. What does that mean, praise? The word comes from price, or value. Like we “appraise,” or determine the value or worth, of a house, or a piece of jewelry. Not for the sake of the item – the diamond is beautiful whether or not we attach a value to it – but for our own sake. We identify, and then prize, what is worth praising. Find the good – and praise it. 

Praise takes center stage in today’s story in which Jesus heals ten lepers. And notice, it is the praise and thanksgiving that take center stage, not the healing itself. That happens offstage. We don’t even see it. The lepers head offstage toward the priest, as Jesus commanded, healing at some point along the way. In artistic portrayals of this story, you often see the other nine very small in the distance. But one returns to the center stage, and praises God with a loud voice, falling at Jesus’ feet, and praising him. He finds the good, and praises it. And, Luke makes a point of telling us, “He was a Samaritan.”

Now this is not a throw-away line. Indeed, this is quite remarkable. Because we might think, from the stories Jesus tells, that Samaritans are good guys, but the Jews did not think that. Way back during the exile in Babylon, the Samaritans started intermarrying, thus dirtying their Jewish blood. And that this particular Samaritan is praising Jesus is especially worth noting, because the primary issue between Jews and Samaritans, beyond even mixed race, is that they disagreed on where was the proper place to worship. Jews believed that it was the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Samaritans worshiped on Mount Gerizim. And this theological difference was a problem. Though they shared a heritage, Jews saw Samaritans as a racial and religious other. 

And yet, along comes Jesus, and all throughout the Gospels he is blurring those thick lines they have drawn. From start to finish, Jesus’ life and teachings call this line-drawing into question. Think: who were the first visitors to the baby Jesus, after the shepherds and the angels? The magi – who were Persians from modern day Iran, not insider Jews. Yet they were the ones who saw what the “insiders” could not see, that Jesus was the king. And then, as Jesus hung on a cross, who was it that correctly identified him as the Son of God? A Roman centurion – not a Jew, not a follower of Jesus. An outsider. Yet he saw Jesus for exactly who he was.

Jesus’ life follows this pattern, and his teachings do the same. We humans are awfully good at forming groups and deciding who gets to be in and who doesn’t, but Jesus is constantly calling that tendency into question. Instead, he seems to follow an ethic of: “find the good – and praise it.” 

Take this for example: way back in chapter 9, Luke tells us that Jesus “turned his face toward Jerusalem” – toward death and the empty tomb. On his way toward Jerusalem, he and the disciples pass through a Samaritan village, and they are denied hospitality, because remember, Samaritans don’t like Jews any more than Jews like Samaritans! Angry at this treatment, the disciples ask Jesus, “Do you want us to command fire to rain down and consume them?” After all, who do these Samaritans think they are?! They deserve punishment! Jesus tells them no, of course, and in the very next chapter he tells a story about a Samaritan, a good Samaritan, who cares for a neighbor in need. He does what the priest and the Levite (or, let’s call them, the pastor and the deacon) didn’t: he shows mercy to his injured neighbor. Jesus finds the good, and he praises it, lifting up this “other,” this Samaritan, this adversary, not just as an okay guy, but as an exemplar of faith. 

Find the good, and praise it… I think we do all right at this within our own groups. After all, the reason we form the groups we do is because we think they are good, and we want to be a part of something good! But Jesus pushes against this self-praise, pushing us instead to find the good and praise it wherever we find the good – even if the good is in who we regard as adversaries. 

Now, fast forward several chapters, toward the end of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, and we return to the same theme, in today’s text. Ten lepers approach Jesus and beg for mercy. He sends them to the priest, and they are healed on the way. One returns to praise God for what God has done. Jesus celebrates this act, telling him, “Your faith has made you well.” But what is he celebrating, exactly? Not his devotion or his obedience – all ten lepers called Jesus Master and did as they were told. It’s not theological correctness – Jews and Samaritans did not agree on key theological points, and that hasn’t changed. 

No, what makes this guy different is that he stops, pivots, and returns to Jesus with thanks and praise. And once again, Jesus exalts a Samaritan as an exemplar of faith. He completes the portrait Jesus had begun to paint when he began his journey, of the Samaritan who showed mercy to a neighbor. That parable displayed the 2nd part of the greatest commandment, to love our neighbor as ourselves. Today’s story highlights the first part: “love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength.” And what does loving God look like? It looks like glorifying God for being the One from whom all blessings flow. It looks like having the insight and the nerve to stop, pivot, return, and praise. Find the good, and praise it. 

So in these two Samaritans – on one end the Good Samaritan, and on the other end, the Thankful Samaritan – we see an illustration of the essence of Jewish, and now Christian, law: show mercy to those in need, and be thankful for when God’s mercy is received. Sometimes we do the good, we show the mercy, like the first Samaritan. And sometimes the good is simply to acknowledge God’s goodness and mercy, and praise it, and praise God for it. Both sides of the coin – both giving mercy and gratefully receiving God's mercy – are a part of faith, and part of the mission of the Church. And sometimes, the good, the mercy-showing, the thanksgiving, the praising… happens outside of our Christian circles. Sometimes there is something to learn about faith from a Muslim, a Hindu, an atheist, or a humanist. Find the good, wherever it is, and praise it – praise it in ways not that divide, but rather, that knit our broken world back together. 

When Jesus “set his face toward Jerusalem,” toward death and new life, he knew that the road would have to go through Samaria. And so is it the case for us, that moving toward the death and resurrection that we know is a part of our lives even in a million little ways, requires us to go through the local neighborhood, through reconciling with and learning from the supposed adversaries right in our community. We find the good, and praise it, trusting that God has put a variety of people in our paths in order for us to learn ever more about what it means to be the merciful, thankful, worshipful Church together. 

Let us pray… Merciful God, as broken as we are, there is still so much good that you have put in the world. Empower us to find that good, in whatever form it may take, and to praise it, trusting that you have enabled all things good. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Full service can be viewed HERE.

Sermon: What faith is and isn't (Oct 2, 2022)

 Pentecost 17C (Day after Mortgage Burning)
October 2, 2022
Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Luke 17:5-10

INTRODUCTION

Our Gospel reading today will begin with the disciples asking, “Increase our faith!” This could summarize all of our readings today – all of them reflect on this concept of faith that we throw around with ease, but don’t always seem to fully understand. All of our readings will give us a little glimpse into what it means to have faith. So listen for what you can learn from each text!

One other quick note: I won’t be addressing this in my sermon, but wanted to mention it: the Gospel includes a parable about slavery, one that may grate on our 21st century ears. Indeed, this text was used as a pro-slavery text, used to keep oppressed people oppressed. I want to be clear that this was not Jesus’ intention! Rather, it is about how a life of faith is about doing good works, not in order to be commended or saved, but because that is just what we do, because it is who we are. I’m happy to talk more about that later, if you wish. 

Okay, now let us hear what the Spirit is saying!

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Yesterday was a pretty exciting day for St. Paul’s: 17 years after taking out a mortgage to pay for a large addition and renovation of our building, we burned our mortgage! Plenty of people didn’t think we’d ever pull it off, that indeed this would break the church, but with faith and devotion, by God we did it. We celebrated the ministry that has been done in this place, and looked forward to the ministry we will do in it. Those of you who were here in the early 2000s and through that project no doubt remember that it was a huge undertaking, one that required a big step out in faith.

We often throw around that word – faith. We say it like everyone knows just what it means, just what it entails. But really, it is such an elusive word, difficult to define, and even more difficult to live. And, we can never seem to have enough of it. So we can resonate with the plea of the disciples in our Gospel lesson today: “Increase our faith!”

Who has not uttered that prayer at some point? When things seem not to be going our way – increase our faith! When we are confused about what is happening in our lives – increase our faith! When we really want to believe, but just can’t seem to find it in our hearts at this moment – increase our faith! When our church faces struggles, or conflict, or we are unsure how the bills will get paid, or how God is planning to get us through this or that trial – increase our faith!

It is a plea familiar to us all. As it turns out, it has been familiar to God’s people throughout history, and so the Bible has much to tell us about faith – what it is, what it isn’t, and how it might play out in our lives. Several of these insights are present in our readings today. 

First, from Luke we learn that faith is not something that can be quantified. That familiar plea, “increase our faith,” doesn’t really make sense. It may sound like Jesus is admonishing the disciples for not having enough faith, but it is the opposite: Jesus is saying that the amount of faith is not what matters – indeed faith as small as a mustard seed can do very great things! To be someone of “little” faith, then, is commendable! And so it is unhelpful to think of faith as a thing that can be counted. Better to think instead of faith as a relationship – specifically a relationship of trusting God. And if we can enter that relationship of utter trust in God, then Jesus is exactly right: we can do anything, even uproot a mulberry bush and plant it in the sea, even undertake a $1.4 million building project in order to accommodate a growing church and her ministry, and to make the building welcoming and accessible to all who want to enter.

A friend was telling me the other day about when she was in college, and her roommate, who was a rock-climbing instructor, brought her to a climbing gym. My friend, who had never been rock-climbing before, harnessed up and tentatively starting climbing the wall. Partway up the wall, her roommate called out, “Okay, now let go!” “No way!” shouted back my friend. “I’ll fall!” “No, you won’t,” returned the seasoned instructor. “The harness will catch you! You won’t fall.” Finally, with fear and trepidation, my friend did as she was told and let go – and sure enough, the harness held her. As she dangled there, she felt liberated, the fear of falling totally gone, and suddenly the prospect of climbing was a lot easier. She scampered up the rest of the wall without fear.

And that is how faith-as-trust works. If we trust God, we might still fall, but we need not fear it if we do, because that faith, that trust, will catch us. With that assurance, we can step out in faith into whatever it is we feel God calling us to do.

The prophet Habakkuk’s lesson in faith is simple and all too well known: faith isn’t easy. His is a context wrought with injustice and violence, and so he cries out to the Lord for an accounting of this situation. He cries in words that are also very familiar to us: “How long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?” How long will I endure this illness or ailment? How long will my grief feel so crippling? How long will I be unemployed? How long do I have to pray for help, and get no reply from God? 

And God’s answer to Habakkuk? The same answer we often seem to receive: wait. And that is what makes faith so hard. It requires patience. As Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, “We hope for what we do not see, [and] we wait for it with patience.” We have to wait a lot, don’t we? We wait for red lights to change, we wait in line, we wait for test results, we wait for a friend or family member to come around – so much of life is waiting! Having to wait for God’s promises to be fulfilled can be the hardest waiting of all, and that, more than anything, is when we need to understand faith as trust – trust that those promises will someday be fulfilled.

As we wait, it is hard not to have doubts. But that is what our Psalm tells us – that faith offers consolation when we find ourselves in doubt. You see, faith and doubt are not opposites. Indeed some of the most faithful people in history have been wracked with doubt. Martin Luther believed that struggle is not at odds with faith, but rather, struggle is a mark of faith – without struggle, he said, faith isn’t genuine. 

Our culture would have us believe that faith and doubt are incompatible opposites. But faith is not so much an absence of doubt as it is a commitment to believe even when you are surrounded by doubt. Sort of like the relationship between courage and fear. I remember, when I was going through cancer treatments, people often told me I was courageous. But I sure didn’t feel very courageous! One wise friend told me that you don’t need to feel courageous to be courageous. Courage is doing what needs to be done even when you do have fear. Indeed, you wouldn’t need courage if you never had fear – and neither would you need faith if you never had doubts. Faith is continuing to trust and believe even in the midst of doubt. 

And that is where the Psalm comes in. The Psalm each week is chosen to respond to the Old Testament reading. So today’s Psalm, in response to Habakkuk’s discouragement, is that even as we doubt and have to wait, there is joy and delight in being caught up in God’s promises. When we find ourselves in that wonder, and let ourselves experience the delight of God’s promises, we find ourselves free, even for just a moment, from our usual worrying about the future. When we have faith in God’s love, when we trust God’s love, it casts out our fears. 

And finally, we have an encouraging word from this letter to Timothy, speaking to Timothy’s faith, and also hearkening the faith of Timothy’s mother and grandmother. This letter reminds us that faith is not something we do alone. It is something passed down to us by our family – as it has been passed down here at St. Paul’s for more than 150 years, and continues to be passed down every time we have a baptism, or teach Sunday School, or sing hymns together, or confirm young adults, or study the Bible, or eat together at this Table. It is something you may have shared with your family around your own dinner table, or during bedtime prayers, or even while you were out fishing with your grandchild. Faith is shared every time we talk with each other – with friends, children, or even strangers – about how our faith has shaped our words, thoughts, and actions, how it was present with us in times of joy and sorrow, times of waiting and times of satisfaction. 

Faith is a gift, given to us first by Christ in baptism, and continually apparent to us through all the people in our lives who have shared faith with us through worship, prayer, song, sacraments, and conversation. As Timothy shows us, faith is and always has been communal, an experience of the risen Christ together and throughout time. 

And so today we continue yesterday’s celebration: we celebrate the myriad ways St. Paul’s faith has increased in her encounters with God’s promises; we celebrate how those promises have been embraced and passed down in times of waiting and times of joy; we celebrate how we still come together to share in love, worship, song, and sacrament, surrounded in the promise of new life in Christ. Thanks be to God! In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen

Full service can be watched HERE.